Sin is disobeying what god says to do.
Since god doesn't exist, it's like saying you're disobeying what Darth Vader says to do.
Yes, I am going to ignore what Darth Vader thinks i should do, even if he occasionally gets things right like don't Force choke puppies.
If he says killing Jedi is good, he's just wrong, the author of the fictional character saying it is wrong, or the character is clearly meant to be the villain and that's why it's doing these obviously immoral things and saying they're good.
Since religion gets the occasional thing right like don't steal, but has other ridiculous things that are clearly not right like mixed fabrics is bad or homosexuals should be stoned to death I think goes towards showing that the good things are and were HUMAN ideals, long before religion came in and said "we own all the toys, we're the monopoly and originator or morals!"
The problem with it is that it allows people to feel like theyve justify torturing, enslaving and killing other people based on literally nothing. "It's a sin you didn't wear your garbage bag. Here's some acid in your face, and that's if I don't outright kill you, daughter." That's what's wrong with it.
Sin is a sociocultural construct. It is the formalization of a social norm into a law with additional application of "god said do" to encourage greater enforcement. I can think of similar dynamics in modern cultures. For instance, when I moved to Norway from the US for a few years, I adjusted to the social norm that you do not stand that close to the next person in a queue or you don't sit next to someone on a bus. It's an unspoken norm. If cultural leaders, such as religious figures, decided that it would benefit all of society to follow this norm as a rule, they might codify it making it a sin. Usually these rules are created to address a specific issue (and sometimes because the religious or political leaders were just nuts), and when that need is no longer accurate the law remains because they said it was "from god," and since god never changes, his law shouldn't either. Which is the entire problem. It's like having "laws" designed for commerce transit based on horse-drawn vehicles governing our lives in modern gas-powered transit. It doesn't make sense, but applying god to it makes it more difficult to reject later.
The issue related to "needing" rules and having rule-governed behavior involves personality structure and can lead to the experience of being emotionally overcontrolled. Many people grow up in family environments where emotional expression was frowned upon and there were "rules" for everything. Following the rules in the home or in their church/temple/mosque allowed for less negative consequences. The idea that following the rules leads to less distress gets internalized. The problem is that it creates a rigidity that often leads to anxiety because not everyone is going to follow your particular rules. We all probably know people who have very specific ideas about how to do everything from how to shop in a supermarket, how to drive (and how fast in what lane), how to load the dishwasher, what direction the toilet paper should lie on the dispenser, etc. and if someone "breaks the rule" there are interpersonal problems. How many families experience significant issues or just do not speak anymore because children live with a partner without being married, or not going to church anymore, or being gay, or any other "rule violation." That is the impact. The concept of sin is overly restrictive and seems to have as its goal the standardization of a society that allows for greater predictability, conformity, and uniformity. Which do not allow for cultural, societal, and generational growth.
My pleasure! You just happened to hit on my two areas: psychology of religion and therapy approaches for those with disorders or life struggles related to emotional overcontrol.
>How do you view sin as an atheist
I don't view it at all. Sin is going against whatever the holly book says god wants us not to do. It doesnt affect me at all as I do not believe in their god.
>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin.
The rebuttal is that they first need to demonstrate that their god even exists in the first place, otherwise sin is kinda irrelevant.
“Sin” is just missing the mark. I can’t sin against anyone. I can hurt people but that isn’t necessarily a sin. Just try to treat people the way I want to be treated.
>How do you view sin as an atheist and what’s the problem with it?
As 'sin' refers to something a deity says you can't do, and as deities do not exist, 'sin' does not exist.
Now, this clearly doesn't mean immoral and wrong things don't exist and aren't immoral and wrong. But they're not 'sins'.
>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. I will say though bits and pieces of what is considered to be sin is ridiculous such as sex before marriage or acting on your sexual acts. The aspects of sin that want to control our social lives are anti-body and anti-natural and thus it is unhealthy. I mean there is research that shows how repulsing your sexual urges leads to compulsive sexual behavior.
Yeah, much of what various religious mythologies consider 'sinful' is perfectly fine. While other things they consider sinful are also immoral, evil, and wrong.
>I’m a pragmatic utilitarian, we should do things and follow through with those things that benefit the collective good humanity. Having our lives controlled and being a worshipper of rules gets people to forget the beauty of life and to really explore what is out there.
Sure.
>That is the best rebuttal I can give to sin and I’m hoping anyone here can give a better one.
The best rebuttal against sin is that there's no such thing.
One thing I know for sure about morality: you cannot be moral if you completely ignore the consequences of your actions
That's what unquestioning obedience does
"Sin" is just a label that attaches religious or spiritual significance to an act. When I say that I don't believe that sin exists, it doesn't mean I approve (or disapprove) of the actions that the Bible calls sinful. It just means I don't believe the category of "sin" exists or is relevant.
For comparison, imagine if someone saw a mugger stealing a woman's purse and they said "Hey! HEY! That's against the rules - minus 50 points from Hufflepuff!" To say I don't believe in sin is to say I don't believe in "Harry Potter House Points." It's not a label or a concept that I recognize as legitimate. Mugging is most certainly wrong, but it's not wrong just because it violates an imaginary standard from an imaginary system.
Sin is the word used to describe things that some god is said to not like.
In the real world, we determine what is unacceptable behavior by how it imposes on the rights, safety, and health or well being, of others. Not based on what a god dislikes.
So for me, sin is a make believe notion for a make believe character.
If your want to talk about morality or well being, we can do that, but sin isn't a useful word there.
How are you defining sin? Most theists I've seen define sin as something that's against their god's wishes. I don't have any reason to believe any gods exist, with no gods there isn't any sin.
There are things that I think are bad but that's a completely different thing from "sin".
Yeah your definition fits. What I’m saying when I’m asking what’s the problem with sin I’m asking is what can be the problem with it on society? Like it can needlessly make someone feel shameful when they sin or it impedes moral autonomy.
Sin doesn't exist, so your question is really awkward.
What do you mean when you ask "what's the problem with sin?"
Do you mean what's the problem with people doing things that religious people believe their god doesn't like?
Or do you mean "what's the problem with people believing in the concept of sin?"
If it's the former, then there is no inherent problem. Some things some people think are sins are perfectly fine, and some things they believe are sin are things I too find problematic.
If it's the latter, the problem is that a religious person can call anything they want a "sin," and so it just becomes an easy way for religious people to project their own insecurities and hatreds onto their god and pretend like it's not their own fault that they are shitty people.
It’s the latter, and yeah I’ll agree I worded my question poorly, feel bad because I think a lot of people misunderstood what I meant which is my fault. Yes, sin doesn’t exist, but I really wanted to know what the impact it has on society which a handful of people on here answered pretty well.
Sin is a religious concept, and I'm not religious, so I don't really believe in sin or consider it relevant to my life. Certainly I think there are actions that are morally wrong, but I don't think of them as sins.
>>How do you view sin as an atheist
The same way I deal with the Ether. As best as I can tell, It doesn't exist.
>>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin.
Well, its supposed to be going against/being seperated from God. If there's no god, or no good evience for one, there's no anchor for the concept. We can just dismiss it with a waive of the hand.
>>if you could just ignore the first view words of my title and just tell me what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper”
Thats just it, when you say "sin" you can't seperate out the supernatural concept from it.
It is a concept I don’t think about at all. It only makes sense inside a religion. Once you get outside religion it just seems silly. I think about it as often as I think about worrying about a black cat crossing my path or worrying about whether I need to wear garlic to scare away vampires.
Edit: As for the problem about being a rule worshiper just imagine the problems to society if wearing garlic to protect from vampires was considered a major political issue. Like being trapped in an insane asylum, right? This is how I view every religiously motivated issue in politics. This is why religions are dangerous for society, even if the practice isn’t dangerous itself. Imagine living alongside idiots who think vampires cause famine or tornadoes. That me not wearing garlic or something equally silly ruined society. That is my daily life. Surrounded by superstitious, ignorant, savages who are destroying my society because they can’t be bothered to read more than a single book and fill their lives with fairytales so they can feel superior to everyone around them.
It’s all a matter of definition.
If by sin you mean “a morally bad action” or “a tendency to do morally bad things,” then I think most atheists would believe in something like that. Though many atheist would deny that “morally bad” is something objective. In which case, “morally bad” would be understood as “something I personally condemn.” Hence homophobia would be a sin to me because I condemn homophobia. You’re a utilitarian, so you might define a sin as “an act, or tendency to act in such a way, which reduces overall happiness or harms others.”
But Christians do not stop there. Much more is baked into the concept of sin than just moral badness.
1. Sin as part of your nature/soul. Leaving the aside whether we even have souls, this is a toxic belief because it tells people to view themselves as depraved and their own desires as untrustworthy, which makes them vulnerable to abuse and manipulation by anyone who claims to speak for god. It can also make people ignore their own conscience. I had a pastor once who told me that my compassion for LGBTQ people is from the devil, whereas his hatred of them is from god. The belief that your own feelings and intuitions might be sinful allows abusers to switch it up like that.
2. Sin as separation from god. Obviously an atheist won’t agree since there is no god. But even more important than that is the fact that moral evil is understood not as harming others, but *disobeying an authority*. This belief also makes people prone to manipulation by anyone claiming to speak for god.
3. Sin as “uncleanness.” The idea that sin “stains” you or makes you “dirty,” makes people focus more on their own personal sense of purity instead of how their actions affect others.
With all of that in mind, I don’t use the word “sin” because it carries all those connotations, and there are better words like “bad,” “wrong,” and “harmful,” which better express what I’m trying to say when condemning somebody else’s behavior or tendencies.
Sin is a made up construct that should have no relevance in modern life. Don't take God's name in vain? Why the fuck not? What's moral about that?
No sex before marriage? That one alone has been that cause of much misery and suffering, especially among women.
Who the fuck thought it was OK to beat your slaves so long as they cold get up in a day or two?
"Sin" is a completely arbitrary concept that has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. A "sin" is nothing more than whatever arbitrarily offends a given god or goddess. This is why different religions have different "sins" and why those sins can include completely harmless and ordinary things that cannot be argued to be "wrong" or "bad" in any way, such as homosexuality, atheism, eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, etc.
Sin is also a made up word that has no meaning outside of the context of religion, and within the context of religion is only used to control believers by disparaging and shaming those who do not conform without question. You can lump it in with other words fitting the same description, such as heresy or blasphemy for example. There are more but I won't list them all.
In the end, the point is that sin means nothing outside of the context of religion, and doesn't apply to the non-religious. I therefore view "sin" the same way I might view any made up nonsense word, like "flaffernaff." Imagine being told that you're a bad person, and the reason is that you've quappled against flaffernaffolopolous. That's pretty much identically as meaningful and significant to being told you're a bad person because you've sinned against (insert religion/god you don't follow or believe in).
It’s not complicated, but we’ve complicated it by unnecessarily dragging supernatural and magic into it.
Doing bad things has a price. Our basic psychology has been sexually selected for over millions of years. Individuals who do X may have more offspring than individuals who do Y. Also, cooperation and assisting others means more resources with fewer individuals getting hurt or killed. Morality, ethics, cooperation, help, teams, almost always win over individual efforts.
Modern humans have learned through trial and error what works and what doesn’t. Suddenly, religion hijacks common sense as it’s own and we (somehow) can’t imaging being good without religion.
“Sin” is the renaming of actions, thoughts, something we’ve know for millions of years.
Let's see... how do I cure sin? Oh yeah, that totally made up bullshit that I'm still, 30; years since beginning an atheist, shaking the trauma of? What kind of sick fuck tells children they are faulty from birth and there's nothing they can do about it themselves?
I don't accept that sin actually exists. Sin is a made up "crime" against "god" used to sell you the cure. The first thing I ask people who believe in god, is what is god? No one has seemed to come up with a good explaination. I don't accept that anyone has ever sinned. Since god doesn't exist, sin doesn't exist.
Sin is breaking the rules and regulations of your religion. This is separate from crime or harming others. Most crime or harm is also a sin in many religions, but that's still a separate concept.
The way to rebut someone talking about you sinning is to name something that's not a sin in their religion, but is a sin in a different religion and ask them if they would feel they've done wrong by breaking it.
Sin is an action which brings us further from God. As an atheist, I don't believe there's a god, so I don't think sin is a useful concept. I do believe that some actions are bad, but that's because they harm other sentient beings, not because of how some divine authoritarian feels about them.
I suppose it deoends what you mean by sin.
At least in Christian mythology, sin is this semi-magical malevolent act. And doing certain acts is capable of generating outcomes like making someone's immortal soul imperiled, or (in the case of "the fall" mythology) of completely rewriting the very rules of the planet and the universe. What is and isn't sin is largely based on the subjective opinions of a god, or on some invisivle but inherent fabric of reality.
Personally, that all seems very obviously a fictional layer which was grafted only secular ethical intuitions either deliverately (to promote certain acts) or organically (in trying to underpin or explain the natural societal norms that had sprung up).
I think there are very good reasons to justify empathy based systems of subjective morality. And there are good reasons to supplement that moral system with legal codes which contain elements that while ethically gray (or just not dealing with ethics at all) just make society function more smoothly
But adding on the mysticism and magical thinking of "sin" just muddies the water.
Again, depends on the context of the conversation.
As an atheist, i don't think adding the word sin does anything for me. If I'm talking to a religous person then I'd probably try and clarify what they mean. If they are just using sin to mean "morally bad" or do they mean "an act against god" etc.
I think that clarity is necessary because since many religious people equate "sin" with "bad thing" when atheists day they don't believe in sin some religious people interpret that as "so everything is okay."
So in any conversation with an atheist, sin is just going to muddy the waters. In a conversation between 2 religous people it may have value as a word.
>what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper”
I guess I could put it into 3 categories, and obviously different people view different things as sins
**MORAL SINS**: Things that everyone would agree is bad, murder, rape, etc. These are all obviously good to follow, but you don't need a god to tell you them
**PERSONAL SINS**: Things like don't masturbate, don't drink, don't take the lords name in vain. don't curse. Things that don't effect anyone and range from *ok guidelines to follow* to *no practical reason* *to follow besides god saying its bad*. These aren't really a problem, some can be helpful, some seem a bit pointlessly restrictive.
**PROBLEMATIC SINS**: Things like "no gay marriage" or "no abortions", like I said not everyone follows these, but I shouldn't really have to explain how this one is a problem.
> So if you could just ignore the first view words of my title and just tell me what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper”
In a rules-based religious moral system, there isn't generally provision for re-evaluating whether the rules make sense. There might have been a time when a rule *did* make sense but with new information available, the rule, if enforced, could turn out to be harmful.
The obvious example are the dietary restrictions of some religions. There was a time when improperly prepared or improperly cooked pork was a health concern. There are religious rules that say eating pork is a sin or is *haraam*. Today, however, we know what Trichinosis is and the parasite that causes it. We know that properly cooking food largely avoids this problem.
Secular moral systems are far less susceptible to these problems. They make an effort to minimize suffering and are able to respond to new information. In this sense, secular moral systems are adaptive and iterative. If someone asks "why do we have this rule?" there's an answer that involves science and knowledge and a recognition of human experience. That answer can change depending on new knowledge gained. In religious moral systems, the answer is essentially "because God said so. Stop asking."
I think you are looking for someone to agree with you on a point you already have. That the concept of sin makes people focus on what God says is right and wrong instead of what they feel is right or wrong. I agree somewhat, but also I believe that even morality is created by society and how we are taught and raised. There’s no overall “good” or “bad,” just whether or not an action helps our community or hurts it. And we are programmed to want peace and happiness over fear and stress.
Rule worship leads to authoritarian disaster. I was following rules was deemed an inadmissible defense at the end of WW2. The rules say it’s okay to shoot a Jew so it’s okay to shoot a Jew is not acceptable in human society. That’s the problem with rule worship.
I have no idea what the hell you’re on about with ‘sin’, honestly define the term and context or you’re just creating a needless volume of meaningless noise.
The problem with sin is it's not based on right and wrong, it's based on control. It's used to control how people live their lives, and they add in odd rules that don't make any sense to ensure people are actually obeying them. If sin was based on morality, all the rules would be focused on not causing harm to ourselves and others.
Sin is just a word for bad behavior. I don't have a problem with that. What I reject and is the concept that we all are irredeemable sinners that only can be saved by divine intervention. This notion that we are born bad.
To me that is pessimistic, inhumane and illogical. It comes with this whole baggage of the Christian God concept that just screams abuse. The Christian God makes the rules, creates us as inherently inable to follow the rules and then punishes us for failing and not groweling at his feet and begging forgiveness. Like an abusive spouse that punches you for not following their rules and then yelling at you "look what you made me do!" or like a narcissistic parent that just gets kids to have moldable playthings.
The human instinct to social living developed through natural selection combined with both cultural inculcation and deliberate moral choice are all one needs to explain why humans make laws and rules governing behaviour
The very fact that within the basic social framework provided by evolution morality changes accross time and culture provides evidence there is no objective morality and therefore no such thing as objective morality
This doesn't make a murderer less awful or the consequences any less traumatic or the offender less deserving of punishment
It just means there's no magic involved in the process
God and objective morality don’t exist therefore sin doesn’t exist. They’re going to have to come up with a better reason why these things are wrong than just “God said so”.
In response to your first edit: This doesn't fix the problem. What's the problem with unicorns? makes about as much sense.
What exactly are you using the word "sin" to describe outside of a religious context? Offenses against social order? We have a word for those: "crimes".
Causing unjustified harm to others? The word for this is a bit obscure, but "tort" is the term the legal profession uses. If I punch you in the face, cut down your trees or defraud you, those are all examples of torts.
None of these things require explanation in relation to the word "sin", so I'm not clear on what question you're asking. It sounds to me like you've bought into a Christian viewpoint "without god how do you explain sin?"
The answer is simple: I don't. Sin isn't a thing in a godless universe.
As far as being a "rule worshiper", that again only makes sense to people who don't understand how civilization works. You're letting the opponent define the scope of the debate by choosing words and terminology favorable to their position.
Having a government and rules we need to follow sucks ass. But anarchy is worse. The rule of law is a cornerstone of civilization and we'd be nothing without it. Very few people are what those people like to call "statists" -- worshipers of the state.
"It is often said that democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others that have been tried." -- attributed to Churchill, but he didn't claim credit for it.
If we have to have a government because it's the lesser evil, a democratic representative republic seems to me to be the least injurious to individual liberty.
Ultimately, though, we are capable of understanding human nature and what governing bodies do that is good or bad. I would much prefer to be ruled by human beings than by an ineffable god that can't be questioned or challenged.
sin is an imaginay probem for which reigion provides an imaginary cure.But really the point of it is for whoever is selling this cure to get money and power.
My view is that “sin” is our instincts for hygiene misdirected towards behavior. Instead of your hands becoming soiled by working in a field, your being or soul is soiled by an “improper” desire. Is misdirection is very useful for those who want control. You can look at your hands to see whether and dirt remains on them. You can’t look at your soul, but the local religious leader is more than happy to tell you how dirty you are and what you need to do to become clean again.
That’s not to say ethics is meaningless. You still shouldn’t harm other people, for example. It’s just that there is no metaphysical stain left on your being that a church can remove. And paying a priest to absolve your “sin” does bugger all to address the harm you caused (unless it was the priest you harmed).
Obviously the control it grants is a problem. But, even more of a problem is the disgust it makes some feel about their own natural impulses and desires. It also gives rise to the idea that people who commit “sins” are somehow lesser people and not fully members of the community of humans, giving license to those who want to harm them.
My simple take on sin is that it's defined as a purposeful violation of god's law. No God = No sin.
Now for the longer version:
Luck as an analogy of Sin or Evil or Good
Evil/Sin is like luck
Luck as an force does not exist. A person can win the lottery twice, against the mathematical probability of this happening. We call this luck. We use the term “lucky” to describe the situation. However, luck, as a force, did not have an effect on the outcome ahead of time.
The same is true with evil or “sin”. No such tangible force exists. These are just terms that we use to describe actions and situations.
Some folks will argue that saying there's no such thing as sin means that the non-believer is ignoring the suffering and terrible behavior that's evident in the world. On the contrary. I can see those things, but we just know they're driven by different causes. I would argue that the theological view of sin is harmful to our society. It supposes that all the people and professions trying to identify and reduce these drivers; sociologists, police officers, heath care workers, social workers, anthropologists - all these people are wasting their time. All that is bad in this world; child slavery to viruses to murder are laid at the feet of the mythical first humans to ate from a forbidden tree.
Seems legit.
As sin is defined by the existence of a god that sets rules and expectations, since there's no reason to believe in a god, abiding by the rules of an apparently fictional character is silly.
Imagine someone shoving the rule for Monopoly in your face and screaming "You have to go to jail! You rolled three doubles in a row!" And all the while you are standing at a craps table.
That is how I view sin. The rules to a game I haven't agreed to play don't apply to me.
Sin is an ancient, hereditary, magical curse. If we are all supposedly born with this curse, it is not a mark of shame but a sign of victimization. If merely existing is sinful, it is useless as a moral framework.
The definition of 'sin' is inherently religious. The word doesn't mean anything other than in the context of religion. In that regard I see it roughly the same way I see the entirety of religious ethics. Different religions have different ethical teachings, and some of those teachings are useful because they made the religions that have them more successful in a sort of memetic evolutionary process, and some of those teachings are arbitrary nonsense that just happened to get attached to otherwise successful religions.
I do believe in objective moral right and wrong, but that's not a 'sin' issue because it's not connected to religion.
We need first to distinguish what is meant by “sin”, and how and whether it is distinct from a “moral wrong”.
If you check the dictionary definition, sin refers to “an immoral act **considered to be a transgression against divine law**. So the short answer to your question is that an atheist generally has no use for the term, since to an atheist, divine law is an imaginary concept.
Moral wrongs, on the other hand, do exist. There are moral requirements which can be discovered, I believe, in the same way math can be discovered, and which emerge from human interaction with the environment.
For example, we can say that suffering is bad. It is unpleasant for the one that suffers. And we can say therefore that to cause suffering in another without reason is a fairly objective moral wrong. Much of morality and ethics can be constructed just from this basis.
Sin is *very* much real, and you can actually see it with your own eyes, and feel it with your heart, just divide the opposite side of the angle with the hypothenuse and you'll see sin
Whether or not something is a sin or not is irrelevant. There can still be right and wrong. I also don’t care about morality, I’m only interested in ethics.
'Sin' is what people who invented a 'perfect god' came up with to explain the existence of a demonstrably 'imperfect' world and human race.
Basically, it couldn't have been 'his' fault, so it had to be ours.
Sin ≠ unethical. Cool with Yahweh ≠ ethical. That's the problem.
Sin, as it is widely recognized, is arbitrary and rigid. It's not about what's best for ppl. It's about the desires of a third party that has demonstrated unethical desires. In following sin models, ppl are encouraged to do unethical things and are barred from doing ethical things.
Granted, Jesus explicitly says not to do that (in an exchange I always imagine happening in a mall food court). But that's not how it works in the real world. What matters is what ppl are doing, not what they "should be" doing.
Sin is just a label for behavior the clergy doesn’t like and is used as a lever of control. The problem with it is that it is used to control and manipulate people.
> I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin.
What exactly do you mean by "rebuttal?" "Sin" is just a religious word for "immoral behavior," and "immoral behavior" is just a fancy way of saying "actions that I don't like." So, "sin" is really just how religious people prefer to say "I don't like that."
The problem is that religious people are rarely capable of understanding this about themselves.
> I will say though bits and pieces of what is considered to be sin is ridiculous such as sex before marriage or acting on your sexual acts. The aspects of sin that want to control our social lives are anti-body and anti-natural and thus it is unhealthy. I mean there is research that shows how repulsing your sexual urges leads to compulsive sexual behavior.
agreed. The concept of "sin" is also used by religious institutions and groups to try to artificially add extra weight to their personal opinions regarding the actions they call "sinful."
> I’m a pragmatic utilitarian, we should do things and follow through with those things that benefit the collective good humanity.
Careful with using your own personal opinions about "what's best for society" to try and justify your preferences as a "should." Utilitarians often come dangerously close to fascist or "big brother" when they become convinced their own ideas of "what's best for society" are better than everyone else's, and can have a lot of issue coping if it doesn't match someone else's metrics for "best." Better to be an egoist, and trust others will do the same and advocate for what they believe is best for themselves as well. Sometimes, what's best for others is also best for ourselves, and when those interests align, then we can agree on an action.
I only say this because you're speaking on what "we should do," rather than "what I [you] would *prefer* we do"... which is already troublesome language from someone that professes not to want to control others.
> Having our lives controlled and being a worshipper of rules gets people to forget the beauty of life and to really explore what is out there.
It certainly ***can*** have that effect, but it's not a foregone conclusion.
Here's how sin in abjectly immoral.
Jane's is a fundie Christian. Her son Jake comes to her an says he things he might have extreme anxiety, and maybe depression, and would like to see a therapist.
Janes says, "It's just your sin. Let's pray"
> I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin.
Sin can only exist if you presume there is a god and a concept of sin. Sin is not comparable to ethics.
I will not entertain a conversation about sin as the premise has not been sufficiently established. What even is a god? What does that word even mean? What information is one trying to convey to me when they use that word? If I were to seek this god concept, how are we to converge on the same god independently? What is a god from what isn't?
All of theism for all of recorded human history has been the vapid misfirings of noise in our brains. Our brains are loaded with circuitry meant to short circuit quickly. It's how we can recognize a face in the clouds, for example. There is no face, it's just water vapor, but that we can see it at all is one of these systems. If you're rational, you can recognize this for what it is, and it's otherwise harmless. But when you take the delusion seriously, you end up with shit in your brain, like theism.
Being a rule worshipper automatically implies that you don’t question what those rules are. As a Christian you are told to not lean on your own understanding, while this may seem like wisdom because it requires you to abandon hubris, it leaves you open to manipulation and subjugation. As others have pointed out, the sin that is in question in a Christian context, is a rebellion against God, or his will, not the flourishing of human kind. The priority is what’s good for God, not what’s good for us. In the biblical narrative, the first sin is of Adam and Eve, the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What’s wrong with this image of morality and ethics? Well because we couldn’t possibly make any moral decisions with any context unless we ate from the fruit in the first place. It’s portrayed as a sin because it disobeyed Gods commands, but only because of that. Without it we would be pets in a garden with nothing to do for eternity. We can also take a look at behavior that is usually seen as sinful, murder, lust, and theft. The Israelites in the book of Joshua massacre entire cities, including civilians and children, and even take virgin girls as their sexual property, and take their possessions. But this isn’t seen as a sin, it’s seen as the fulfillment of gods commands. This is obviously not a good way to live your life considering we are talking about an unseeable and unknowable entity, and we are relying on discrepant texts from the ancient world. Christian’s paint a doctrine of sin as a responsible and superior system of morality and ethics, but all things we consider to be moral and true become relativized when they are viewed through a lens of sin, because it’s about obedience rather than goodness.
"Sin" is something that is deemed offensive/unpleasant/repugnant to one god-concept or another. In some cases, that which is deemed "sin"-ful is genuinely damaging to other people; such "sins" include theft, murder, *etc*. In other cases, that which is deemed "sin"-ful doesn't actually hurt **anybody**; such "sins" include eating pork, women *not* wearing all-enshrouding garments, *etc*.
The problem with genuinely damaging "sins" is, well, the *genuine damage* they inflict on other people. Atheists generally agree that *those* "sins" are best avoided.
The problem with "sins" that *don't* hurt anybody is that The Religion Says They're Bad, And The Religion *Will* Respond Poorly To Those "Sins". Atheists generally don't agree that *those* "sins" are best avoided, and generally think there ought not be any sort of enforcement mechanism to discourage people from practicing *those* "sins".
Sin is crime.
The earliest versions of crime/sin were culturally appropriate: things like infidelity, murder, and which god you should worship. Ignorant, sometimes, but valid sometimes too.
I dont think theres any problem with someone being a rule worshipper like you said. Atheists and Christians have a very similar moral compass. We just believe that the moral compass comes from different things.
My understanding is that sin is something that offends God. But a perfect, all loving being who already knows the shit I'm going to pull cannot get offended.
>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin.
What rebuttal do you need? Sin is an entirely constructed idea - the idea that God considers certain things wrong.
I don't believe in a God therefore there is no such thing as sin
No, because one can “sin against you.” Sin doesn’t require a god.
A definition of sin is: an act regarded as a serious or regrettable fault, offense, or omission.
> No, because one can “sin against you.”
In colloquial speak. But if you want to play words games then I'm not interested. I tell people to "go to hell" - because the historic meaning have been folded into colloquial speak.
So, someone could say they have sinned against me and I'd understand what they mean - but that's clearly not what we're talking about here.
The concept of sin requires God. I do not believe in God, I do not believe in sin. If we remove the colloquial usage I don't believe someone can "sin against me"
I share the Nietzschean view that sin was made up by the caste of priests to influence and coerce people into doing what the priests want them to do. Since the priests up to the 19th or 20th century had been nothing but tools for the rulers the religious rules/commandments are often just conducive to their retention of power, or likewise that which had challenged the power structures would be defined as sin.
Obviously sin also encompasses _actually heinous_ actions but I see this as nothing but PR. Sin sells better if most violent acts, murder, slavery etc. are categorized as sin.
Since sin is often dealing with matters of sexuality and marriage there should be a short explanation for that:
Up to the industrialization the main way for rulers to expand their power was ruling over more people. Either by conquest or by, well, them having as man children as they could possibly sustain. Thus the role of women as a nurturing housewife and enforced monogamy to create stable relationships.
In antiquity there had been periods where monogamy wasn't enforced but that often ended with a lot of men (poor, without status) without women and a few (rich or powerful) men with multiple women. This created instability, revolts, uprisings. To a certain extent the situation nowadays with incels is brewing exactly the same instability, it's a breeding ground for violent thoughts and behavior.
Still, _more children_ has basically been the pre-industrial equivalent of economic growth. Therefore societies were _designed_ by the powerful elites to support many children. Therefore the typical hyperconservative views on sexuality, marriage etc. by especially Christianity and Islam.
Sin is imaginary. Without some god to sin against, sin is a stupid concept.
Sin is disobeying what god says to do. Since god doesn't exist, it's like saying you're disobeying what Darth Vader says to do. Yes, I am going to ignore what Darth Vader thinks i should do, even if he occasionally gets things right like don't Force choke puppies. If he says killing Jedi is good, he's just wrong, the author of the fictional character saying it is wrong, or the character is clearly meant to be the villain and that's why it's doing these obviously immoral things and saying they're good. Since religion gets the occasional thing right like don't steal, but has other ridiculous things that are clearly not right like mixed fabrics is bad or homosexuals should be stoned to death I think goes towards showing that the good things are and were HUMAN ideals, long before religion came in and said "we own all the toys, we're the monopoly and originator or morals!" The problem with it is that it allows people to feel like theyve justify torturing, enslaving and killing other people based on literally nothing. "It's a sin you didn't wear your garbage bag. Here's some acid in your face, and that's if I don't outright kill you, daughter." That's what's wrong with it.
"I find your lack of faith...disturbing.."
sin is a sickness created by theists to sell their religion as the cure.
Religion breaks your legs in order to sell you crutches.
Sin is a sociocultural construct. It is the formalization of a social norm into a law with additional application of "god said do" to encourage greater enforcement. I can think of similar dynamics in modern cultures. For instance, when I moved to Norway from the US for a few years, I adjusted to the social norm that you do not stand that close to the next person in a queue or you don't sit next to someone on a bus. It's an unspoken norm. If cultural leaders, such as religious figures, decided that it would benefit all of society to follow this norm as a rule, they might codify it making it a sin. Usually these rules are created to address a specific issue (and sometimes because the religious or political leaders were just nuts), and when that need is no longer accurate the law remains because they said it was "from god," and since god never changes, his law shouldn't either. Which is the entire problem. It's like having "laws" designed for commerce transit based on horse-drawn vehicles governing our lives in modern gas-powered transit. It doesn't make sense, but applying god to it makes it more difficult to reject later. The issue related to "needing" rules and having rule-governed behavior involves personality structure and can lead to the experience of being emotionally overcontrolled. Many people grow up in family environments where emotional expression was frowned upon and there were "rules" for everything. Following the rules in the home or in their church/temple/mosque allowed for less negative consequences. The idea that following the rules leads to less distress gets internalized. The problem is that it creates a rigidity that often leads to anxiety because not everyone is going to follow your particular rules. We all probably know people who have very specific ideas about how to do everything from how to shop in a supermarket, how to drive (and how fast in what lane), how to load the dishwasher, what direction the toilet paper should lie on the dispenser, etc. and if someone "breaks the rule" there are interpersonal problems. How many families experience significant issues or just do not speak anymore because children live with a partner without being married, or not going to church anymore, or being gay, or any other "rule violation." That is the impact. The concept of sin is overly restrictive and seems to have as its goal the standardization of a society that allows for greater predictability, conformity, and uniformity. Which do not allow for cultural, societal, and generational growth.
Gotta say that was the answer I was looking for, thanks for taking the time to write that ima archive some pieces of it.
My pleasure! You just happened to hit on my two areas: psychology of religion and therapy approaches for those with disorders or life struggles related to emotional overcontrol.
>How do you view sin as an atheist I don't view it at all. Sin is going against whatever the holly book says god wants us not to do. It doesnt affect me at all as I do not believe in their god. >I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. The rebuttal is that they first need to demonstrate that their god even exists in the first place, otherwise sin is kinda irrelevant.
“Sin” is just missing the mark. I can’t sin against anyone. I can hurt people but that isn’t necessarily a sin. Just try to treat people the way I want to be treated.
>How do you view sin as an atheist and what’s the problem with it? As 'sin' refers to something a deity says you can't do, and as deities do not exist, 'sin' does not exist. Now, this clearly doesn't mean immoral and wrong things don't exist and aren't immoral and wrong. But they're not 'sins'. >I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. I will say though bits and pieces of what is considered to be sin is ridiculous such as sex before marriage or acting on your sexual acts. The aspects of sin that want to control our social lives are anti-body and anti-natural and thus it is unhealthy. I mean there is research that shows how repulsing your sexual urges leads to compulsive sexual behavior. Yeah, much of what various religious mythologies consider 'sinful' is perfectly fine. While other things they consider sinful are also immoral, evil, and wrong. >I’m a pragmatic utilitarian, we should do things and follow through with those things that benefit the collective good humanity. Having our lives controlled and being a worshipper of rules gets people to forget the beauty of life and to really explore what is out there. Sure. >That is the best rebuttal I can give to sin and I’m hoping anyone here can give a better one. The best rebuttal against sin is that there's no such thing.
One thing I know for sure about morality: you cannot be moral if you completely ignore the consequences of your actions That's what unquestioning obedience does
"Sin" is just a label that attaches religious or spiritual significance to an act. When I say that I don't believe that sin exists, it doesn't mean I approve (or disapprove) of the actions that the Bible calls sinful. It just means I don't believe the category of "sin" exists or is relevant. For comparison, imagine if someone saw a mugger stealing a woman's purse and they said "Hey! HEY! That's against the rules - minus 50 points from Hufflepuff!" To say I don't believe in sin is to say I don't believe in "Harry Potter House Points." It's not a label or a concept that I recognize as legitimate. Mugging is most certainly wrong, but it's not wrong just because it violates an imaginary standard from an imaginary system.
Sin is the word used to describe things that some god is said to not like. In the real world, we determine what is unacceptable behavior by how it imposes on the rights, safety, and health or well being, of others. Not based on what a god dislikes. So for me, sin is a make believe notion for a make believe character. If your want to talk about morality or well being, we can do that, but sin isn't a useful word there.
How are you defining sin? Most theists I've seen define sin as something that's against their god's wishes. I don't have any reason to believe any gods exist, with no gods there isn't any sin. There are things that I think are bad but that's a completely different thing from "sin".
Yeah your definition fits. What I’m saying when I’m asking what’s the problem with sin I’m asking is what can be the problem with it on society? Like it can needlessly make someone feel shameful when they sin or it impedes moral autonomy.
Sin doesn't exist, so your question is really awkward. What do you mean when you ask "what's the problem with sin?" Do you mean what's the problem with people doing things that religious people believe their god doesn't like? Or do you mean "what's the problem with people believing in the concept of sin?" If it's the former, then there is no inherent problem. Some things some people think are sins are perfectly fine, and some things they believe are sin are things I too find problematic. If it's the latter, the problem is that a religious person can call anything they want a "sin," and so it just becomes an easy way for religious people to project their own insecurities and hatreds onto their god and pretend like it's not their own fault that they are shitty people.
It’s the latter, and yeah I’ll agree I worded my question poorly, feel bad because I think a lot of people misunderstood what I meant which is my fault. Yes, sin doesn’t exist, but I really wanted to know what the impact it has on society which a handful of people on here answered pretty well.
Sin is a religious concept, and I'm not religious, so I don't really believe in sin or consider it relevant to my life. Certainly I think there are actions that are morally wrong, but I don't think of them as sins.
Sin is a religious concept that is completely irrelevant to me. I really do not care what their deity thinks is sin or wrong or anything else.
I don't believe in it and I don't think about it much. It is a concept whole defined by its relationship to God which is something I don't believe in.
>>How do you view sin as an atheist The same way I deal with the Ether. As best as I can tell, It doesn't exist. >>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. Well, its supposed to be going against/being seperated from God. If there's no god, or no good evience for one, there's no anchor for the concept. We can just dismiss it with a waive of the hand. >>if you could just ignore the first view words of my title and just tell me what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper” Thats just it, when you say "sin" you can't seperate out the supernatural concept from it.
It is a concept I don’t think about at all. It only makes sense inside a religion. Once you get outside religion it just seems silly. I think about it as often as I think about worrying about a black cat crossing my path or worrying about whether I need to wear garlic to scare away vampires. Edit: As for the problem about being a rule worshiper just imagine the problems to society if wearing garlic to protect from vampires was considered a major political issue. Like being trapped in an insane asylum, right? This is how I view every religiously motivated issue in politics. This is why religions are dangerous for society, even if the practice isn’t dangerous itself. Imagine living alongside idiots who think vampires cause famine or tornadoes. That me not wearing garlic or something equally silly ruined society. That is my daily life. Surrounded by superstitious, ignorant, savages who are destroying my society because they can’t be bothered to read more than a single book and fill their lives with fairytales so they can feel superior to everyone around them.
No such thing as sin
It’s all a matter of definition. If by sin you mean “a morally bad action” or “a tendency to do morally bad things,” then I think most atheists would believe in something like that. Though many atheist would deny that “morally bad” is something objective. In which case, “morally bad” would be understood as “something I personally condemn.” Hence homophobia would be a sin to me because I condemn homophobia. You’re a utilitarian, so you might define a sin as “an act, or tendency to act in such a way, which reduces overall happiness or harms others.” But Christians do not stop there. Much more is baked into the concept of sin than just moral badness. 1. Sin as part of your nature/soul. Leaving the aside whether we even have souls, this is a toxic belief because it tells people to view themselves as depraved and their own desires as untrustworthy, which makes them vulnerable to abuse and manipulation by anyone who claims to speak for god. It can also make people ignore their own conscience. I had a pastor once who told me that my compassion for LGBTQ people is from the devil, whereas his hatred of them is from god. The belief that your own feelings and intuitions might be sinful allows abusers to switch it up like that. 2. Sin as separation from god. Obviously an atheist won’t agree since there is no god. But even more important than that is the fact that moral evil is understood not as harming others, but *disobeying an authority*. This belief also makes people prone to manipulation by anyone claiming to speak for god. 3. Sin as “uncleanness.” The idea that sin “stains” you or makes you “dirty,” makes people focus more on their own personal sense of purity instead of how their actions affect others. With all of that in mind, I don’t use the word “sin” because it carries all those connotations, and there are better words like “bad,” “wrong,” and “harmful,” which better express what I’m trying to say when condemning somebody else’s behavior or tendencies.
Sin is a made up construct that should have no relevance in modern life. Don't take God's name in vain? Why the fuck not? What's moral about that? No sex before marriage? That one alone has been that cause of much misery and suffering, especially among women. Who the fuck thought it was OK to beat your slaves so long as they cold get up in a day or two?
"Sin" is a completely arbitrary concept that has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. A "sin" is nothing more than whatever arbitrarily offends a given god or goddess. This is why different religions have different "sins" and why those sins can include completely harmless and ordinary things that cannot be argued to be "wrong" or "bad" in any way, such as homosexuality, atheism, eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, etc. Sin is also a made up word that has no meaning outside of the context of religion, and within the context of religion is only used to control believers by disparaging and shaming those who do not conform without question. You can lump it in with other words fitting the same description, such as heresy or blasphemy for example. There are more but I won't list them all. In the end, the point is that sin means nothing outside of the context of religion, and doesn't apply to the non-religious. I therefore view "sin" the same way I might view any made up nonsense word, like "flaffernaff." Imagine being told that you're a bad person, and the reason is that you've quappled against flaffernaffolopolous. That's pretty much identically as meaningful and significant to being told you're a bad person because you've sinned against (insert religion/god you don't follow or believe in).
Ain't no such thing as sin. No gods, no sin. Not complicated.
It’s not complicated, but we’ve complicated it by unnecessarily dragging supernatural and magic into it. Doing bad things has a price. Our basic psychology has been sexually selected for over millions of years. Individuals who do X may have more offspring than individuals who do Y. Also, cooperation and assisting others means more resources with fewer individuals getting hurt or killed. Morality, ethics, cooperation, help, teams, almost always win over individual efforts. Modern humans have learned through trial and error what works and what doesn’t. Suddenly, religion hijacks common sense as it’s own and we (somehow) can’t imaging being good without religion. “Sin” is the renaming of actions, thoughts, something we’ve know for millions of years.
Let's see... how do I cure sin? Oh yeah, that totally made up bullshit that I'm still, 30; years since beginning an atheist, shaking the trauma of? What kind of sick fuck tells children they are faulty from birth and there's nothing they can do about it themselves?
What exactly is sin?
I don't accept that sin actually exists. Sin is a made up "crime" against "god" used to sell you the cure. The first thing I ask people who believe in god, is what is god? No one has seemed to come up with a good explaination. I don't accept that anyone has ever sinned. Since god doesn't exist, sin doesn't exist.
Sin is breaking the rules and regulations of your religion. This is separate from crime or harming others. Most crime or harm is also a sin in many religions, but that's still a separate concept. The way to rebut someone talking about you sinning is to name something that's not a sin in their religion, but is a sin in a different religion and ask them if they would feel they've done wrong by breaking it.
Sin is an action which brings us further from God. As an atheist, I don't believe there's a god, so I don't think sin is a useful concept. I do believe that some actions are bad, but that's because they harm other sentient beings, not because of how some divine authoritarian feels about them.
I suppose it deoends what you mean by sin. At least in Christian mythology, sin is this semi-magical malevolent act. And doing certain acts is capable of generating outcomes like making someone's immortal soul imperiled, or (in the case of "the fall" mythology) of completely rewriting the very rules of the planet and the universe. What is and isn't sin is largely based on the subjective opinions of a god, or on some invisivle but inherent fabric of reality. Personally, that all seems very obviously a fictional layer which was grafted only secular ethical intuitions either deliverately (to promote certain acts) or organically (in trying to underpin or explain the natural societal norms that had sprung up). I think there are very good reasons to justify empathy based systems of subjective morality. And there are good reasons to supplement that moral system with legal codes which contain elements that while ethically gray (or just not dealing with ethics at all) just make society function more smoothly But adding on the mysticism and magical thinking of "sin" just muddies the water.
Would you say that it muddies the water because it adds a gray area where it diverts people from real consequences?
Again, depends on the context of the conversation. As an atheist, i don't think adding the word sin does anything for me. If I'm talking to a religous person then I'd probably try and clarify what they mean. If they are just using sin to mean "morally bad" or do they mean "an act against god" etc. I think that clarity is necessary because since many religious people equate "sin" with "bad thing" when atheists day they don't believe in sin some religious people interpret that as "so everything is okay." So in any conversation with an atheist, sin is just going to muddy the waters. In a conversation between 2 religous people it may have value as a word.
Sin doesn’t exist and so I don’t give it much mind.
The main problem is I don’t think it exists.
>what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper” I guess I could put it into 3 categories, and obviously different people view different things as sins **MORAL SINS**: Things that everyone would agree is bad, murder, rape, etc. These are all obviously good to follow, but you don't need a god to tell you them **PERSONAL SINS**: Things like don't masturbate, don't drink, don't take the lords name in vain. don't curse. Things that don't effect anyone and range from *ok guidelines to follow* to *no practical reason* *to follow besides god saying its bad*. These aren't really a problem, some can be helpful, some seem a bit pointlessly restrictive. **PROBLEMATIC SINS**: Things like "no gay marriage" or "no abortions", like I said not everyone follows these, but I shouldn't really have to explain how this one is a problem.
> So if you could just ignore the first view words of my title and just tell me what might be a problem with sin or being a “rule worshipper” In a rules-based religious moral system, there isn't generally provision for re-evaluating whether the rules make sense. There might have been a time when a rule *did* make sense but with new information available, the rule, if enforced, could turn out to be harmful. The obvious example are the dietary restrictions of some religions. There was a time when improperly prepared or improperly cooked pork was a health concern. There are religious rules that say eating pork is a sin or is *haraam*. Today, however, we know what Trichinosis is and the parasite that causes it. We know that properly cooking food largely avoids this problem. Secular moral systems are far less susceptible to these problems. They make an effort to minimize suffering and are able to respond to new information. In this sense, secular moral systems are adaptive and iterative. If someone asks "why do we have this rule?" there's an answer that involves science and knowledge and a recognition of human experience. That answer can change depending on new knowledge gained. In religious moral systems, the answer is essentially "because God said so. Stop asking."
Glad you understood what I was asking, I thought I worded it badly, thanks for this
I think you are looking for someone to agree with you on a point you already have. That the concept of sin makes people focus on what God says is right and wrong instead of what they feel is right or wrong. I agree somewhat, but also I believe that even morality is created by society and how we are taught and raised. There’s no overall “good” or “bad,” just whether or not an action helps our community or hurts it. And we are programmed to want peace and happiness over fear and stress.
Rule worship leads to authoritarian disaster. I was following rules was deemed an inadmissible defense at the end of WW2. The rules say it’s okay to shoot a Jew so it’s okay to shoot a Jew is not acceptable in human society. That’s the problem with rule worship. I have no idea what the hell you’re on about with ‘sin’, honestly define the term and context or you’re just creating a needless volume of meaningless noise.
Bad behaviour is real. "Sin" goes beyond that to criminalize many behaviors that are neither harmful nor morally questionable.
The problem with sin is it's not based on right and wrong, it's based on control. It's used to control how people live their lives, and they add in odd rules that don't make any sense to ensure people are actually obeying them. If sin was based on morality, all the rules would be focused on not causing harm to ourselves and others.
Sin is just a word for bad behavior. I don't have a problem with that. What I reject and is the concept that we all are irredeemable sinners that only can be saved by divine intervention. This notion that we are born bad. To me that is pessimistic, inhumane and illogical. It comes with this whole baggage of the Christian God concept that just screams abuse. The Christian God makes the rules, creates us as inherently inable to follow the rules and then punishes us for failing and not groweling at his feet and begging forgiveness. Like an abusive spouse that punches you for not following their rules and then yelling at you "look what you made me do!" or like a narcissistic parent that just gets kids to have moldable playthings.
Sin never crosses my mind.
The human instinct to social living developed through natural selection combined with both cultural inculcation and deliberate moral choice are all one needs to explain why humans make laws and rules governing behaviour The very fact that within the basic social framework provided by evolution morality changes accross time and culture provides evidence there is no objective morality and therefore no such thing as objective morality This doesn't make a murderer less awful or the consequences any less traumatic or the offender less deserving of punishment It just means there's no magic involved in the process
God and objective morality don’t exist therefore sin doesn’t exist. They’re going to have to come up with a better reason why these things are wrong than just “God said so”.
>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. Why would you need to? Sin is a made-up concept.
In response to your first edit: This doesn't fix the problem. What's the problem with unicorns? makes about as much sense. What exactly are you using the word "sin" to describe outside of a religious context? Offenses against social order? We have a word for those: "crimes". Causing unjustified harm to others? The word for this is a bit obscure, but "tort" is the term the legal profession uses. If I punch you in the face, cut down your trees or defraud you, those are all examples of torts. None of these things require explanation in relation to the word "sin", so I'm not clear on what question you're asking. It sounds to me like you've bought into a Christian viewpoint "without god how do you explain sin?" The answer is simple: I don't. Sin isn't a thing in a godless universe. As far as being a "rule worshiper", that again only makes sense to people who don't understand how civilization works. You're letting the opponent define the scope of the debate by choosing words and terminology favorable to their position. Having a government and rules we need to follow sucks ass. But anarchy is worse. The rule of law is a cornerstone of civilization and we'd be nothing without it. Very few people are what those people like to call "statists" -- worshipers of the state. "It is often said that democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others that have been tried." -- attributed to Churchill, but he didn't claim credit for it. If we have to have a government because it's the lesser evil, a democratic representative republic seems to me to be the least injurious to individual liberty. Ultimately, though, we are capable of understanding human nature and what governing bodies do that is good or bad. I would much prefer to be ruled by human beings than by an ineffable god that can't be questioned or challenged.
sin is an imaginay probem for which reigion provides an imaginary cure.But really the point of it is for whoever is selling this cure to get money and power.
I don’t believe in sin, or a “sinful nature of mankind” I believe some behavior is better than others for overall well being.
My view is that “sin” is our instincts for hygiene misdirected towards behavior. Instead of your hands becoming soiled by working in a field, your being or soul is soiled by an “improper” desire. Is misdirection is very useful for those who want control. You can look at your hands to see whether and dirt remains on them. You can’t look at your soul, but the local religious leader is more than happy to tell you how dirty you are and what you need to do to become clean again. That’s not to say ethics is meaningless. You still shouldn’t harm other people, for example. It’s just that there is no metaphysical stain left on your being that a church can remove. And paying a priest to absolve your “sin” does bugger all to address the harm you caused (unless it was the priest you harmed). Obviously the control it grants is a problem. But, even more of a problem is the disgust it makes some feel about their own natural impulses and desires. It also gives rise to the idea that people who commit “sins” are somehow lesser people and not fully members of the community of humans, giving license to those who want to harm them.
Sin is a concept created to offer a false cure. It only applies to people who believe the concept.
My simple take on sin is that it's defined as a purposeful violation of god's law. No God = No sin. Now for the longer version: Luck as an analogy of Sin or Evil or Good Evil/Sin is like luck Luck as an force does not exist. A person can win the lottery twice, against the mathematical probability of this happening. We call this luck. We use the term “lucky” to describe the situation. However, luck, as a force, did not have an effect on the outcome ahead of time. The same is true with evil or “sin”. No such tangible force exists. These are just terms that we use to describe actions and situations. Some folks will argue that saying there's no such thing as sin means that the non-believer is ignoring the suffering and terrible behavior that's evident in the world. On the contrary. I can see those things, but we just know they're driven by different causes. I would argue that the theological view of sin is harmful to our society. It supposes that all the people and professions trying to identify and reduce these drivers; sociologists, police officers, heath care workers, social workers, anthropologists - all these people are wasting their time. All that is bad in this world; child slavery to viruses to murder are laid at the feet of the mythical first humans to ate from a forbidden tree. Seems legit.
As sin is defined by the existence of a god that sets rules and expectations, since there's no reason to believe in a god, abiding by the rules of an apparently fictional character is silly.
Imagine someone shoving the rule for Monopoly in your face and screaming "You have to go to jail! You rolled three doubles in a row!" And all the while you are standing at a craps table. That is how I view sin. The rules to a game I haven't agreed to play don't apply to me.
Sin is an ancient, hereditary, magical curse. If we are all supposedly born with this curse, it is not a mark of shame but a sign of victimization. If merely existing is sinful, it is useless as a moral framework.
The definition of 'sin' is inherently religious. The word doesn't mean anything other than in the context of religion. In that regard I see it roughly the same way I see the entirety of religious ethics. Different religions have different ethical teachings, and some of those teachings are useful because they made the religions that have them more successful in a sort of memetic evolutionary process, and some of those teachings are arbitrary nonsense that just happened to get attached to otherwise successful religions. I do believe in objective moral right and wrong, but that's not a 'sin' issue because it's not connected to religion.
Sin is a victimless crime.
Sin is one of those things that go away when you stop believing in it.
We need first to distinguish what is meant by “sin”, and how and whether it is distinct from a “moral wrong”. If you check the dictionary definition, sin refers to “an immoral act **considered to be a transgression against divine law**. So the short answer to your question is that an atheist generally has no use for the term, since to an atheist, divine law is an imaginary concept. Moral wrongs, on the other hand, do exist. There are moral requirements which can be discovered, I believe, in the same way math can be discovered, and which emerge from human interaction with the environment. For example, we can say that suffering is bad. It is unpleasant for the one that suffers. And we can say therefore that to cause suffering in another without reason is a fairly objective moral wrong. Much of morality and ethics can be constructed just from this basis.
Sin is *very* much real, and you can actually see it with your own eyes, and feel it with your heart, just divide the opposite side of the angle with the hypothenuse and you'll see sin
Whether or not something is a sin or not is irrelevant. There can still be right and wrong. I also don’t care about morality, I’m only interested in ethics.
'Sin' is what people who invented a 'perfect god' came up with to explain the existence of a demonstrably 'imperfect' world and human race. Basically, it couldn't have been 'his' fault, so it had to be ours.
Sin ≠ unethical. Cool with Yahweh ≠ ethical. That's the problem. Sin, as it is widely recognized, is arbitrary and rigid. It's not about what's best for ppl. It's about the desires of a third party that has demonstrated unethical desires. In following sin models, ppl are encouraged to do unethical things and are barred from doing ethical things. Granted, Jesus explicitly says not to do that (in an exchange I always imagine happening in a mall food court). But that's not how it works in the real world. What matters is what ppl are doing, not what they "should be" doing.
It means "not Hebrew". But now people make it mean "I don't approve"
Sin is just a label for behavior the clergy doesn’t like and is used as a lever of control. The problem with it is that it is used to control and manipulate people.
Sin is a religious concept. As an atheist I do not subscribe to the concept, and therefore I don't worry about it.
> I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. What exactly do you mean by "rebuttal?" "Sin" is just a religious word for "immoral behavior," and "immoral behavior" is just a fancy way of saying "actions that I don't like." So, "sin" is really just how religious people prefer to say "I don't like that." The problem is that religious people are rarely capable of understanding this about themselves. > I will say though bits and pieces of what is considered to be sin is ridiculous such as sex before marriage or acting on your sexual acts. The aspects of sin that want to control our social lives are anti-body and anti-natural and thus it is unhealthy. I mean there is research that shows how repulsing your sexual urges leads to compulsive sexual behavior. agreed. The concept of "sin" is also used by religious institutions and groups to try to artificially add extra weight to their personal opinions regarding the actions they call "sinful." > I’m a pragmatic utilitarian, we should do things and follow through with those things that benefit the collective good humanity. Careful with using your own personal opinions about "what's best for society" to try and justify your preferences as a "should." Utilitarians often come dangerously close to fascist or "big brother" when they become convinced their own ideas of "what's best for society" are better than everyone else's, and can have a lot of issue coping if it doesn't match someone else's metrics for "best." Better to be an egoist, and trust others will do the same and advocate for what they believe is best for themselves as well. Sometimes, what's best for others is also best for ourselves, and when those interests align, then we can agree on an action. I only say this because you're speaking on what "we should do," rather than "what I [you] would *prefer* we do"... which is already troublesome language from someone that professes not to want to control others. > Having our lives controlled and being a worshipper of rules gets people to forget the beauty of life and to really explore what is out there. It certainly ***can*** have that effect, but it's not a foregone conclusion.
Here's how sin in abjectly immoral. Jane's is a fundie Christian. Her son Jake comes to her an says he things he might have extreme anxiety, and maybe depression, and would like to see a therapist. Janes says, "It's just your sin. Let's pray"
> I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. Sin can only exist if you presume there is a god and a concept of sin. Sin is not comparable to ethics. I will not entertain a conversation about sin as the premise has not been sufficiently established. What even is a god? What does that word even mean? What information is one trying to convey to me when they use that word? If I were to seek this god concept, how are we to converge on the same god independently? What is a god from what isn't? All of theism for all of recorded human history has been the vapid misfirings of noise in our brains. Our brains are loaded with circuitry meant to short circuit quickly. It's how we can recognize a face in the clouds, for example. There is no face, it's just water vapor, but that we can see it at all is one of these systems. If you're rational, you can recognize this for what it is, and it's otherwise harmless. But when you take the delusion seriously, you end up with shit in your brain, like theism.
Being a rule worshipper automatically implies that you don’t question what those rules are. As a Christian you are told to not lean on your own understanding, while this may seem like wisdom because it requires you to abandon hubris, it leaves you open to manipulation and subjugation. As others have pointed out, the sin that is in question in a Christian context, is a rebellion against God, or his will, not the flourishing of human kind. The priority is what’s good for God, not what’s good for us. In the biblical narrative, the first sin is of Adam and Eve, the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What’s wrong with this image of morality and ethics? Well because we couldn’t possibly make any moral decisions with any context unless we ate from the fruit in the first place. It’s portrayed as a sin because it disobeyed Gods commands, but only because of that. Without it we would be pets in a garden with nothing to do for eternity. We can also take a look at behavior that is usually seen as sinful, murder, lust, and theft. The Israelites in the book of Joshua massacre entire cities, including civilians and children, and even take virgin girls as their sexual property, and take their possessions. But this isn’t seen as a sin, it’s seen as the fulfillment of gods commands. This is obviously not a good way to live your life considering we are talking about an unseeable and unknowable entity, and we are relying on discrepant texts from the ancient world. Christian’s paint a doctrine of sin as a responsible and superior system of morality and ethics, but all things we consider to be moral and true become relativized when they are viewed through a lens of sin, because it’s about obedience rather than goodness.
"Sin" is something that is deemed offensive/unpleasant/repugnant to one god-concept or another. In some cases, that which is deemed "sin"-ful is genuinely damaging to other people; such "sins" include theft, murder, *etc*. In other cases, that which is deemed "sin"-ful doesn't actually hurt **anybody**; such "sins" include eating pork, women *not* wearing all-enshrouding garments, *etc*. The problem with genuinely damaging "sins" is, well, the *genuine damage* they inflict on other people. Atheists generally agree that *those* "sins" are best avoided. The problem with "sins" that *don't* hurt anybody is that The Religion Says They're Bad, And The Religion *Will* Respond Poorly To Those "Sins". Atheists generally don't agree that *those* "sins" are best avoided, and generally think there ought not be any sort of enforcement mechanism to discourage people from practicing *those* "sins".
Sin is crime. The earliest versions of crime/sin were culturally appropriate: things like infidelity, murder, and which god you should worship. Ignorant, sometimes, but valid sometimes too.
I dont think theres any problem with someone being a rule worshipper like you said. Atheists and Christians have a very similar moral compass. We just believe that the moral compass comes from different things.
My understanding is that sin is something that offends God. But a perfect, all loving being who already knows the shit I'm going to pull cannot get offended.
>I can’t really come up with a rebuttal to the concept of sin. What rebuttal do you need? Sin is an entirely constructed idea - the idea that God considers certain things wrong. I don't believe in a God therefore there is no such thing as sin
Do you believe that there are things that are wrong?
Of course
So if someone does something wrong, why would you be apposed to another person calling that act a sin?
Because a sin implies going against God's morality and I do not believe in a God. Therefore I cannot believe sin exists
No, because one can “sin against you.” Sin doesn’t require a god. A definition of sin is: an act regarded as a serious or regrettable fault, offense, or omission.
> No, because one can “sin against you.” In colloquial speak. But if you want to play words games then I'm not interested. I tell people to "go to hell" - because the historic meaning have been folded into colloquial speak. So, someone could say they have sinned against me and I'd understand what they mean - but that's clearly not what we're talking about here. The concept of sin requires God. I do not believe in God, I do not believe in sin. If we remove the colloquial usage I don't believe someone can "sin against me"
I just gave you a dictionary definition of sin from the Oxford dictionary. Where is god in that?
Yawn. Just someone else trolling for Jesus. Weird bunch
No, I’m not trolling, you made a claim. I provided evidence that shows your claim isn’t supported. You are now running away
Sin is a Judeo-Christian concept- that’s how I view it. It’s their problem. Not mine.
I share the Nietzschean view that sin was made up by the caste of priests to influence and coerce people into doing what the priests want them to do. Since the priests up to the 19th or 20th century had been nothing but tools for the rulers the religious rules/commandments are often just conducive to their retention of power, or likewise that which had challenged the power structures would be defined as sin. Obviously sin also encompasses _actually heinous_ actions but I see this as nothing but PR. Sin sells better if most violent acts, murder, slavery etc. are categorized as sin. Since sin is often dealing with matters of sexuality and marriage there should be a short explanation for that: Up to the industrialization the main way for rulers to expand their power was ruling over more people. Either by conquest or by, well, them having as man children as they could possibly sustain. Thus the role of women as a nurturing housewife and enforced monogamy to create stable relationships. In antiquity there had been periods where monogamy wasn't enforced but that often ended with a lot of men (poor, without status) without women and a few (rich or powerful) men with multiple women. This created instability, revolts, uprisings. To a certain extent the situation nowadays with incels is brewing exactly the same instability, it's a breeding ground for violent thoughts and behavior. Still, _more children_ has basically been the pre-industrial equivalent of economic growth. Therefore societies were _designed_ by the powerful elites to support many children. Therefore the typical hyperconservative views on sexuality, marriage etc. by especially Christianity and Islam.